Backing up your data is one of the most important things that you can possibly do. However, most people either forget, put it off, or only back up every once in a while. The service from Backblaze alleviates these problems and automates your data backups so you don’t even have to think about it.

Backblaze is a cool company, offering unlimited backup space and proprietary software that automatically finds and updates changed or new files. However, is it worth the cost, and does the company live up to what it advertises? I purchased a Backblaze subscription and I’ve been using it for about a month now, and this review is a rundown of my experience with the service.

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Software And Setup

One of the big selling points of Backblaze is that it is extremely easy to set up and start using. You first download the software from the Backblaze website and then install it. This is quite easy, and anyone with even minor computer experience shouldn’t have much of a problem.

Now, the thing about Backblaze is that it’s almost TOO easy. That means that it automatically chooses the files on your computer that it’s going to back up. That generally means the “My Documents” folders such as Photos / Videos / Music / My Documents. It may vary from computer to computer and they may change the automatic settings. However, the point is that this definitely makes it a no-brainer setup for even the most confused of computer users. However, if you have the knowledge you must make sure it’s backing up the things you want it to or don’t want it to. If you have created a separate folder for photos it might not automatically find it.

So the general idea of how Backblaze figures out what to automatically back up is good, but you might have to do some tweaking.

Backup Method

Backing up is done automatically in the background, meaning it will be uploading data while you’re working. Depending on your internet connection it could take almost two weeks to back up your data. This may or may not be acceptable to you, but it actually goes by pretty fast once you forget about it. Backblaze will then identify which files and folders have been changed, added, or removed, and will update the backup accordingly. Sometimes it takes a few hours for the software (which runs slowly so as not to drain valuable CPU power) to “notice” a change, and so backup isn’t necessarily automatic.

Another cool thing Backblaze does is that it keeps file version history for 4 weeks. This means it will keep up to four weeks of old versions of a file. So if you were writing a novel and you suddenly decided that the changes you made to the plot points in chapter 16 were a total mistake, you can go back up to four weeks and find an earlier version of the file.

Restoring your files from Backblaze can be made easy in the event that you suffer a major loss of data: instead of downloading all of your data Backblaze can send you all of your files on a hard drive or flash drive for an additional fee.

Other Features

Backblaze offers an interesting “Find my PC” feature that could be potentially helpful in the event that your laptop or computer is stolen. It works by reporting the IP address when the computer is connected to the internet. Although not completely foolproof, it’s an interesting addition that could potentially help police track stolen property.

Pros And Cons

Pros:

Backups are automatic – meaning I never forget to do them! From experience we never know when we’re going to need a backup of our data, and I just know this is going to save my butt one day.

The software really is rather quiet in the background. I don’t notice it at all, which is rare for these sorts of programs.

Sometimes the automatic backup can slow down your internet (ISP’s don’t like people uploading a lot and will throttle your connection). However if you find this is happening you can slow down the rate that Backblaze uploads or you can simply pause it.

Backblaze’s data center is in one location…should something happen to their building your data would be lost. However, unless your computer crashed right after their data center crashed, it wouldn’t be too much of an issue.

Each computer must have its own subscription

Data uploads and time spent uploading is limited by your internet connection speed.

No file sharing – it’s backup and restore only.

My Experience

Overall I’ve been very pleased with Backblaze. I’m presently using it on a desktop PC that I use for business. I normally back up the video and photo files on this PC on an external drive, but I thought that having them in a second, off site location would be a great insurance policy for my important files. The only downsides I’ve experienced are basically the fact that I do sometimes have to pause the backup while watching Netflix as it slows down my internet connection too much, and that it does take a long, long time to back up large files and lots of data.

I use another backup system called MyPCBackup for my laptop, and I find that I do tend to use their sync folder and mobile app a lot. Backblaze doesn’t have a sync folder and the mobile app is rather limited.

So, while Backblaze does have its limits, it’s a very good and cheap solution for certain needs. If all you need are your files to be reliably backed up in case of emergency, this could be just the system for you.

If you’re curious, I highly recommend downloading the software and trying out Backblaze for 15 days to see how it runs on your system and how you like it! If you don’t like it, it’s very easy to uninstall, and they won’t bombard you with advertisements.

About the Author

Roger Feinstein has grown up with computers his entire life and strives to help others understand what goes on behind the scenes in their PCs. He's been writing tech articles for websites for over 5 years.

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